Staining the logs

Staining the cabin was one of the few things that went better than expected. We purchased 30 gallons of stain and rented an airless sprayer, we were able to put 2 coats on the entire cabin, inside and out in about 6-7 hours.
It looks a little darker than we had planned, but we expect it to lighten up a little bit over the next couple of weeks, and with the chinking in place.

Blasting with Walnut Shells

It has been too long since we last posted our progress.  I guess that its better late than never.  The interior framing is finished.  The floors and are in as well.    We have been faced with the difficult decision on how to clean the logs.  Most people have been using an angle grinder and abrasive sanding disks to do the job.  I tried about every grain of sanding disk, and wire wheels.  The results were not that good.                

We then decided to use walnut shells and "blast the logs.  As you can see from the pic's, the shells did a great job.  I had Bryce, Penny, Austin, and one of my  sons friends (Joseph) helping out .  We rented a massive diesel air compressor and that really did the job well.  It took 3 days of hard work, but it was well worth it.  Would I rent the compressor and equipment again, to clean the logs??  Yes, I absolutely would!!     I won't ramble anymore.  The pic's tell the story.  BTW, staining and chinking are next!      

From Brown to White! (These are Engelmann Spruce) 

 The Diesel Air Compressor

 The hopper held about 75 pounds of Shells.                                    50lb. bags

 My truck was loaded!  Since we sifted and re-used some of the shells, we used 50 instead of 100 bags.  I am sure glad I had my truck!

 Our fancy "sifter"                                                               Bryce and Austin saved me $$ by sifting!

 Time to sweep!

Flooding...

We had a long winter in 2011, it lasted into June, but then it warmed up way to fast and caused lots of problems for our little town. Not only were all the reservoirs full, and over spilling the banks, the ground was also so saturated, that there was no place for the water to go, but up! Many people had flooded basements from ground water seeping up through the floor. We were lucky, since we don't have a basement, (only a crawlspace) we had 3 sump pumps going 24 hours to keep the level under 10".

With the reservoirs overflowing, we also had issues of that water coming to town. as you can see in the pictures below, the Cabin was spared thanks to an observant neighbor who noticed the water going around the cabin. Our culvert was smashed on one end, so we were able to pull it out, and then put a berm of dirt around the property and we were OK. But we did have some fun, and let the kids float down the burrow on the pontoon!

metal roof

Finally an update on the Cabin (I hope) I have tried several times, but kept having issues, so I just gave up! Now it is almost a year later... anyways, we have made tons of progress, so I will put a few posts up, starting with this one.

This was last spring, We finally got the metal roof up, it was actually easier than we thought it would be, it still took longer than we thought it would, but that is ALWAYS the case!! We had tons of help, from friends, family, and some of our local neighbors.

we had the sheets cut to length, so installation went smoothly, we just screwed them onto the roof (after we pre-drilled the holes)

Our Oldest and youngest sons helping to pre-drill the holes. (we did this on the ground to make it easier.) Also our Dog Jessie was there to help... or play fetch!

putting the tar paper down.

Almost done!

Screwing all the screws in turned out to be quite a job!

Sleepers, Insulation, and OSB

After the T&G, we put up the sleepers, they are the boards that hold the insulation and give support to the top of the roof.

These are the sleepers all laid out on top or the T&G roof.

One of the bad things about doing the roof in the middle of the winter, we spent alot of time clearing the snow off of the roof before we could really get to work.

We used Rigid Styrophome Insulation because it doesnt need to be vented, and it adds great insulation. We had to stack 5 deep to get our Rfactor for this area, but we did go a little bit overboard, we needed R49, and these are 2" thick sheets, with an R factor of 6 per inch so each sheet is R12 so 5=R60 but when we are getting into the -30 or colder nights here in Jan. I think we will be glad we went with the extra Rfactor.

Finally onto the OSB, this was the easiest part of the roof, they went up really well!

Glad we are finally done with that part of the roof, we are taking a break and enjoying the winter! This was last saterday, we went Ice fishing with some of our friends, total of about 25 fish caught in about 5 hours for about 5 fishing poles, it was nice to do something besides the cabin for a change!

We are going to order our metal roof soon, and hopefully get it up before the spring rains start!

T&G roof

Ok, it has been a long hard winter, we have had ups and downs along the way, we found a local saw mill that had T&G 2"x8"x16' we decided to go with a clear coat stain to keep the interior light, we will probably go with a little darker stain on the log walls, and an even little darker stain on the flooring...when that time comes.
stained Tounge and Groove in the drying phase.

I spent several weeks staining, luckily we have a 3 car garage that is heated, (best decision we ever made to have a heated garage!) it took all of the 2 bay side to lay out 22 boards on an improvised scaffolding and stain them, then let them dry for a day, the 3rd bay is where we stacked the unfinished boards (so they weren't out in the cold and so they would not warp), then we would lay the boards up on the roof as they were stained, needless to say this took a long time! We had some issues with the rafters not being set right, (long story) but we got them all up! and it looks great!

T&G half up, this if a view from inside the cabin

This view is from our current house, that is the corner of our fence.

We are so glad that we are building our first Log Home so close to our house and can go back and forth pretty easily!

we nailed foot holds up to help with the walking on the roof, they were just scrap T&G

Almost done!! (this view is from the back of the house)

11-12-10

Ok, so today we set the last 3 sets of rafters, we didn't have the gradall anymore, so Landon came up with a solution, I never would have thought it would have worked, but it did, and actually it worked really well!

lifting one of the 4x12 rafters up with one of the tractors

almost there

both tractors, holding the set of rafters, with Tom getting the carriage bolt in place.

moving the rafters into place

Tom inching up the rafter to get on top of the Ridge Pole.

Setting the Ridge Pole, and rafters

First off, I have to admit that I wasn't on site this day, I was out of town, but we had some great friends lined up to come up and help. Thanks, Larry, Brett, Brent, Landon, and Mitch for being here to help Jason set this up.

Here I would like to answer a few of the most asked questions...
Q- why are there spaces between the logs, and what do you do about them?
A- The spaces are expected, this is not a kit home, they are not milled logs, so they are not going to fit perfectly, we will fill them with a mortor mix called chinking, but this comes at a much later date.

Q- why do the logs all look crooked?
A- we are using logs as our scaffolding, to help us be able to stand where we need to stand. thy are supported by the ends of the logs hanging over (called the overdangles) so they are crooked, which in turn makes it look like the hole house is crooked.

Q- are you going to leave those ends of the logs like that?
A- No, but we are using them to help hold up the scaffolding, so we will leave them that way, until we are ready to cut them (near the end of the project)

Q- How did you learn how to do this?
A- Jason stumbled upon a website www.loghomebuilders.org We attended a class and follow the website, it really isn't rocket science, just alot of hard work, and some creative thinking.

We set up the lifting poles (the tall logs) because our tractor didn't reach far enough to set the center RSPL, or the rafters, but in the end we decided to rent a gradall for a day to get these done.

Woo Hoo, the Ridge Pole is in place!

This was how they lifted most of the rafters up, it worked but they ran out of daylight with 3 sets still on the ground.

lifting.....

most of the rafters in place.

10/22/10 The Ridge Pole

So we got both of the end RSPL's in place, and the Ridge Pole ready to be lifted into place

10/12 - 10/14 Cap logs and RSPL's

The walls are up, and we are setting the Cap logs. (the logs that the rafters will rest on)

Mitch and Landon setting the Cap logs

All the walls up, and the cap logs in place

A view of the inside of the log home, from the top of the wall.

A view looking towards town from the top of the wall.

Landon drilling the hole in the bottom of the RSPL (Ridge Pole Support Log)

Moving the RSPL into place

Our tractor didn't reach far enough, so we had to do some rigging thanks to the ingenuity of Landon, we got them up!

Landon relieved that it is set in place!